Frankenshoulder

Back to the doctor yesterday. Bandage removed. Wound looks good (really cool, Frankenstein type scar). Doctor says that I cannot lie on my right side for 6 weeks, which is a bummer because that means I cannot do the back exercises that might help the pain from pre-existing disc disease because they would put too much pressure on the shoulder. Boy this world gets ya comin' and goin', don't it? One more visit scheduled in 2 weeks for a final post-operative x-ray. Two months before I can drive the motorbike again (if I am brave enough). I mean, Grab car is okay, but you kind of have to go just one place, and I am used to going here and there on the motorbike to get my various errands done. But the cost of going here and then there and then the other place using grab which soon become unmanageable. Ah well, such is life for the time being.

Allen Somebody

After coffee this morning at my favorite spot, I walk up to the nearest Kimia pharmacy. I have decided that methylprednisolone will assist in the healing of my shoulder. I also found last week after meeting the surgeon once again that the pain in my right mid back is from yet another broken bone. This one was not broken so badly as those in my multiply fractured shoulder, and yet it is causing much more pain than the shoulder. It is a stabbing pain, much worse when you get up or sit down, or certainly when you try to get out of bed in the morning. The doctor, last week, gave a pain medication that has proven completely ineffective. Pretty much the only way I can sleep at night is by taking Xanax. The main problem with the shoulder is frustration at the limited motion along with the need to sleep only on my left side. At night also there are shooting pains in the shoulder and twitching nerves in the arm. 

So from the Kimia pharmacy, I call for a Grab car. 16,000 rupiah going and 16, 000 coming back. Not bad. Together, the price of an evening coffee  somewhere, which I no longer enjoy, staying home instead. So that I break even as far as cost goes, for the two Grab trips are equal in price to one coffee at the beach.

On the way back home, the Grab driver plays country music on his stereo. Allen somebody, or somebody Allen. I don't know him, but he's pretty good. He's got the twang going, and it's hard not to sing along -- which the driver does. He is a mustached young man and has a deep, pleasant voice. He sings along about love gone wrong. What else can you do? 

The driver really likes this Allen somebody. He searches for another tune which he sends to the stereo from his phone. There is no tape, no disc, no radio dial. I guess this is the way they do it these days. I don't understand how it works. 

I'm thinking that I am pretty much cooked. I'm thinking that I'm about ready to clock out. Punch my card. 

What now? TV news that I can't bear to hear. Old movies that I have seen before. Books. Coffee. Medicine. Sleep. Half-hearted physical therapy. Maybe there's a cookie somewhere. Popcorn. The popcorn is always more entertaining than the entertainment.

Salvation

The Messiah is something more than a figure and a person - - it is something that flows in your blood, resides in your breath, it is the dearest and most precious human thought: that salvation exists. And that's why you have to cultivate it like the most delicate plant, blow on it, water it with tears, put it in the sun during the day, move it into a warm room in the night time. 

---------

My death, which until now has lurked somewhere in the distance, offstage, dressed up and made up, has now cast off its ball gown, and I see it before me and it's true form. I am not frightened, and my death brings me no pain. It only seems to me that the months and the years are now moving contrarywise. For how can an old person be permitted to go on, while the lives of the young are cut short? 

--The Books of Jacob, Olga Tokarczuk 

And thusly should we live. This I say of the first quote, and a beautifully expressed thought it is. Especially coming from a writer who is an atheist. That is my understanding anyway about Tokarczuk.

I get the second quote too. My death also has lurked somewhere in the distance, but at 72, going on 73, its carefree lurking days are definitely over. Relatively speaking, the time is upon me. It cannot be put off. It cannot be negotiated with. It is just there, having thrown off that old ball gown (🤭) and appeared in all its glory, naked as the day I was born, peering around corners, ducking behind trees, stepping on the heels of my shoes, knocking me off my freaking motorbike. Ah, still here are you? it says. Well, so am I. But, you know, even when you are near the end, it is still hard to take it quite seriously. It is still hard to grasp the meaning of finality. And that brings me back to the precious thought expressed in the first quote: that salvation exists. 

Original Sins

The cow and the horse tracks in the road were full of water, the rain having been enough to charge them, but not enough to wash them away. Across these minute pools the reflected stars flitted in a quick transit as she passed; she would not have known they were shining overhead if she had not seen them there - - the vastest things of the universe imaged in objects so mean.

     --Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

Behold, when thy face is made bare, he that loved thee shall hate; 

Thy face shall be no more fair at the fall of thy fate. 

For thy life shall fall as a leaf and be shed as the rain; 

And the veil of thine head shall be grief, and the crown shall be pain. 

     --Atalanta in Calydon, Swinburne

Well, appearances may be deceiving (and usually are when it comes to the first phase of romantic love), and sin, like equality, when portioned out may fall in unjust measure, particularly when it comes to the male and the female of the species - - sin being more sinful and equality less equal where the woman is the object. These are the dynamics at play in Tess of D'Urbervilles. 

It is a rather slow novel, and often needlessly so, as Hardy by the time he wrote this later novel had become enamored with naturalism, a school of literature particularly popular in the late 19th and early 20th century and known for such literary midgets as Theodore Dreiser and Hamlin Garland. Gone with the wind, those two. Happily however Hardy does retain a special talent, so ingeniously conceived in his earlier works, for interweaving nature and setting with character and narrative, and thus keeps his head well above the shallower efforts of others. At the same time, it is my feeling that he loses focus in many passages of this novel, and rather than working a magic of clean strokes and swift sleight of hand, gets too often stuck in a quicksand of mere nature, impressive for its detail but tedious for its delay of the tale. The story has finally picked up pace at around page 200, but too late I think to rank with the other three Hardy novels I have recently spoken of here. 

Black Stars

... And then the last thought that comes to him before he finally drifts off is how hard it is for us to ever get away from ourselves.

The Books of Jacob, Olga Tokarczuk

When I was in grade school - - somewhere near the midpoint, I guess - - I found an old ledger book of some sort in my parents basement and in this I would record the nature of the day I had just spent, giving each day some sort of colored star, as I recall. A sunny yellow star meant that it had been a good day, and a black star meant a bad day. I recorded a goodly number of those black stars, feeling sorry for my fate as I did so. And yet there seemed some sort of consolation in those black stars, something somehow, in some strange way preferable or certainly more notable than the sunny yellow stars. As it seems to me now, I noted them darkly down on the page with a certain sort of tragic relish. 

I count these days of this past week as Black Star days. And it seems that I am little by little understanding that my life is over 🤭. Well, my life as I have known it anyway in these recent years in Bali. 

They say that in older people there is almost always an event that marks the beginning of the end, something from which they will never fully recover and must finally expire. Will this be it for me? I cannot know. But I despair at this point of recovering even the limited good health I had before this motorbike accident, this broken shoulder. I confine myself for the most part to the house - - not that I cannot go out, but because doing so seems just too painful and too much trouble. I cannot enjoy the simple daily things that I used to enjoy. Hell, it's too painful really even to get dressed. I am wrapped up uncomfortably in this arm sling just as if I were tied to a chair. 

The funny thing is that it is not even the shoulder that hurts so very much as it is a focused area in my right mid back. Is this from the shoulder injury, or is it the pre-existing herniated discs in my back, or is it a localized nesting of arthritis. Well, perhaps I will find out when I see the doctor on Saturday. 

Don't have an accident in Indonesia, I have always said, because here they do not give narcotic pain medications. They are against the law. 

But boy what I wouldn't give for some Vicodin just now!

how I learned to be a one-armed man

First off, I

had to crash my back in order to cause the proper injury. So, when I was on my way back home from town on Wednesday, I turned onto my little home straight and halfway down the street, I managed to somehow suddenly crash onto my right side, specifically squarely on my shoulder. It was the strangest thing, really, it was as if the bike was suddenly in violently yanked out from under me, as if by the hand of God himself. Or Satan. 

Anyway, the young men nearby who were working on building a house, rushed to my aid, helped me to my feet, and it was immediately clear to me that my shoulder was dislocated. At the very least. Later, at the doctor's office, I was to find that the shoulder was broken in three places. 

I was helped back to my house by the aforesaid workers and ultimately joined by a parade of neighbors as well, one of whom offered to drive me to the hospital. 

That seemed like a good idea. 

So off we went to the emergency department and finally saw a doctor. Got an x-ray. Got an echocardiogram. And so on. 

The shoulder was in need of an operation, I was told, but the surgeon decided that we would have to wait until Monday because I am on blood thinners for a previous stroke. 

Given the severe pain I was having by the time I got back home, waiting nearly 4 days for surgery seemed ridiculous. By this time, everyone knew of the incident and begin calling around to different hospitals. Finally, Louise suggested a hospital where she has a friend - - in fact, the chief administrator of the hospital. Viewing the X-ray online, the doctor at this hospital disagreed with waiting because of a blood thinner, considering the injury an emergent situation. 

So off again to the new hospital and another ER and more tests and IV lines and so on. 

In the meantime, Evelyn in Java had heard of the accident and immediately booked a ticket to fly here and stay with me in the hospital. 

Gosh, people here are kind and decent. It always amazes me. 

While we waited for Louise and Wayne to come pick me up in their car, a score of neighbors hung around with me on my patio, brought me food, cut up some fruit for me, discussed all the mechanics of the incident. 

By the way, I should mention that it was not God or the devil who pushed my bike over. As it turned out, there was a cable across the road, like an internet cable, and as I drove over it, it wound into the spokes of my wheel and yanked the bike out from under me. Talk about freak accidents. 

To make a long story short, I was checked into the hospital, Evelyn arrived, and the next thing I knew I was in surgery and under total anesthesia. Which was a relief. I kind of wish I could have stayed that way. 

Now, back home again since Saturday, I must wear a sling on my right arm at all times. And when sleeping, I must lie only on my left arm. I am to move the arm as a little as possible for the next two weeks. 

So this is where learning to be a one-armed man comes into play. And I can tell you, it is not easy. Especially when every movement you make sends a shrieking pain through your shoulder and back. 

How to put on clothing with one arm? Well, there are ways. You have to employ special and unusual maneuvers to pull on pants or put a shirt over your head, or put on your socks. The whole incident is giving me a new found sense of respect and amazement for one armed men.

Unfortunately, Evelyn has had to go back home, this being Sunday now, and so I am on my own. Well, the dogs are here, but they are really not much help. More of a hindrance really. It is up to me alone now to discover how one-armed men prepare meals, for example, or shower, or dry after showering, or wash the dishes, or do the laundry. And so on. 

To make things worse, my pre-existing condition with degenerative disc disease is made much worse than usual, as, naturally, the entire back has been traumatized then twisted about. 

One armed men are not happy campers, as far as I can tell so far. But they have to learn to live this way. There's no other option. 

Obviously, I won't be driving the motorbike for some time to come. One armed men do not drive motorbikes. And so the only way out of the house is to get a ride from Grabcar. So I have to pay if I want to go anywhere, and I have to pay to get back again. But at least I don't have to pay for the gas!

The Comet of 1759

The comet resembles a scythe aimed at humanity, a naked glistening blade that might slice off millions of heads at any moment, and not only the ones on the craned necks in Ivanie, but also city dwellers' heads, Lwow heads, Krakow heads--even royal heads. There is no doubt it is a sign of the end of the world, a harbinger of angels rolling up the whole show like a rug. The play is evidently over, armies of archangels already gathering on the horizon.

The Books of Jacob, Olga  Tokarczuk

Signs and wonders.

I have an old friend who used to keep me up to speed on the latest end times/rapture/end of the world news. This time, each time, it was a sure thing. The signs and the times and the pertinent scriptures and the calendar of Jewish feasts and who knows what else were all aligned.  The puzzle is solved. The end is not only near. Near has never been satisfactory. No, this time the end is here. 

And yet, it wasn't. 

A slight mistake had been made. A miscalculation. 

No worries. The next end is soon formulated and locked in. 

But I always wondered how the words of the Lord and the apostles got locked out. 

A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except for the sign of Jonah. 

...for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

But of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.

And...well, and so on.

Signs in the heavens. Earthquakes in divers places. Wars and rumors of wars. People were as certain of the impending end in 1759 as they are now. And that adds up to a whole lot of predictions going wrong. 

Maybe the Lord is waiting for us to understand and implement the meaning of his first coming before he bothers to come again.

And folks, that might take a good long time. Or maybe forever. 

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Communing with the Living Dead

"I commune with the dead," says the priest, showing with his hand the books behind him, lying on the table. "I'm accustomed to their stories. Nothing surprises me. I can even honestly say that I prefer to listen to the dead than to the living." 

--The Books of Jacob, Olga Tokarczuk

So much of what comes to my mind these days, thoughts that in the past would have pressed me to speak, seems just too depressing and too pointless to merit the effort of utterance. I used to think it would mean something. I thought that if we all spoke out at once it would rattle the world to wakefulness. Instead, I am overwhelmed by the deaf and dull march into oblivion of the irretrievable days and months and years. Much of which we feared losing is lost, behind us now. I may as well listen to the dead than to the living. 

In reading Tokarczuk's prescient novel, one can hardly help but see a reflection in our own time of the mid 1600s, a time of chaos, division, violence, hatreds, poverty, greed, depravity, despair. Thus, the desperate hope of a savior. The arrival of a messiah then, a sudden rapture now. 

Even the most bizarre, most frightening thing can start to seem natural, familiar, when it becomes a part of the plan. 

All of the stories have already been told. Nothing surprises me anymore.

The Boy

Those of us who think God addresses us by means of external events are wrong, as naive as children. For he whispers directly into our innermost souls. 

------------

Cry, brother, cry. Your tears will cleanse the wound, and it will heal quickly.

--The Books of Jacob, Olga Tokarczuk

Early this morning, I saw myself out by the front gate, peeking around the corner, looking back at myself. 

I was sitting at the table, smoking a cigarette, looking at my phone, and at first it was just something quick, in the corner of my eye, a trick of light or mistaken motion.

But then I/he peeked again, and long enough this time to be definite, real--a head of wispy blonde hair, nearly white in the sun. What are we now - - 8 or 9 years old?

Hey boy, I said, Hello. 

We are thin, the both of us, yet he with the vigor and fitness of youth, I with the atrophy of age. But I was once the same as he, and he, poor soul, will be the same as I.

The boy steps more toward the center of the open gate now and waves at me. He continues to look, and I don't know what else to say, or why is looking, so I just smile. 

He dashes off then, and I am about to crawl off, sloth-like, into the house, but then he reappears, this time with his mother. 

Now she smiles, and says, He likes your motorbike.

And I and myself and he and his mother all smile. 

Well then, come in, I say. Take a good look. 

The boy checks with his mother for approval, and then slowly approaches the bike, and with reverence, as if it were an object of worship. The boy walks a full circle around the bike, this holy relic (or no, I am the relic, don't let me get confused), nodding shyly with admiration, reaching out with a hand but never quite touching. He is shy. I was shy too. I, this boy. 

And then he is gone, out into the world, and I wonder whether I will ever see myself again. I think that would be nice, but with things such as these we can never be certain.

Trash

So we're having a bit of a trash situation here in Bali these days. Or I should say these many days. Apparently the government has decided that there will be no more trash on the island. Or no trash collection anyway. They say that there is nowhere to take the trash. 

Well that's a bit of a kerfuffle, isn't it? 

So here is this mountain of trash just in front of my house. Gunung sampah, in the language. It is growing with each day and more putrid with each day, and with each night the dogs drag various portions of it into the street and into my driveway. 

It seems also bound to attract various creatures such as rats and snakes and cockroaches and God knows what else. Alligators? 

This morning when I came home from having coffee I opened the door and found a rather large snake in the middle of my floor. 

Of course as soon as I approached, the snake slithered under the nearest obstruction, attempting to hide himself. Otis the dog came in and immediately sensed the presence of this snake. He began to hunt it beneath one of my shoe racks. He flushed the snake out of that hiding place only to have it slither back behind my tall, heavy bookcase. I had to wrestle this thing out from the wall so that Otis could get behind it. The snake then made his way around the dog and back to the shoe rack, as Otis decided he was not about to be careless around the thing. Pretty smart dog, as it turns out that the snake is of a poisonous type. This I learned after sending a picture of the snake to the neighborhood group. It is a picung snake. It can spray a fluid at its enemies which causes blood clotting and poisoning.

Anyway, by continually moving things and using a broom to direct its movements, along with Otis's rearguard attacks on its tail, we managed to get it outside onto the front patio, which is where the photo above was taken. Oma (Gramma) from down the street was alarmed by the barking of the dogs, Otis having now been joined by Jagger, and came up to help with her own broom and a metal dustpan. 

The snake is no more. RIP. 

But what of his brothers still out there? 

Oma advices that I keep my door closed. But that's something I plan to be doing anyway, not so much to prohibit the snakes, which may or may not come, but to block out the stench as far as possible. 

Not a very good advertisement for Paradise island, is it.

Sparks

That night I saw the world in a completely different way than I had ever seen it before, illuminated by a pale gray sun, small, miserable, and crippled. Darkness was emerging out of every nook and cranny. Wars and plagues were raging the whole world over, Rivers overflowing their banks as the earth quaked. Each and every human seemed like such a brittle being, like the merest eyelash or speck of pollen. I understood then that human life is made of suffering, that suffering is the true substance of the world. Every single thing was screaming in pain. 

--------

"Don't be fooled by all that gilding. Scratch it with your fingernail, and you will see what's underneath," said Reb Mordke, and he dragged me into filthy courtyards, where he began to show me a completely different world. Ulcerous, ill women begging outside the bazaar, male prostitutes dressed as women, ruined by hashish and sick and poor, crumbling mud huts on the city's edges, packs of mangy dogs scrounging through the trash, in between the bodies of their companions, starved to death. It was a world of unthinkable cruelty and evil, in which everything raced towards its own destruction, toward death and decay.

--The Books of Jacob, Olga Tokarczuk

Pretty bleak stuff, right. Ah, but now I remember, or I begin to remember. Jacob Frank, acolyte of Sabbatai Zevi before him, a 17th century Jewish Messiah figure ultimately captured by Muslims and given the choice of death or conversion to Islam. Zevi chose conversion (so much for his term as Messiah). Frank, like Zevi, believed that only descent into the realms of utter degradation could ultimately save those trapped therein (the trapped 'sparks'), lead them back out again, and thereby bring about the Tikkun, the repair, the restoration of the world. Or some such nonsense. 

The strange thing about all of these strange philosophies is that the deeper you go, the more confused you become. It's like falling into one wormhole after another. Maybe. I've never actually fallen into a wormhole, but I imagine it might be something like this. My son, Holden, seemed to have things more or less straight in his own mind, but then again his mind was not so much straight as it was labyrinthine. For me, the gospel was always both a simpler and a more elegant path to follow. 

Nonetheless, it seemed good entertainment at the time, and an avenue by which I might keep a handle on my son's journey, to somehow know something about what was going on, just trying to keep my head above water, and hoping that he could too, or at least that I might be there to rescue him when his arms grew weary.

 

Mostly Concerning Literary Matters.

Walking along the lane at dusk the stranger was struck by two or three peculiar features therein. One was an intermittent rumbling from the back premises of the inn halfway up; this meant a skittle alley. Another was the extensive prevalence of whistling in the various domiciles - - a piped note of some kind coming from nearly every open door. Another was the frequency of white aprons over dingy gowns among the women around the doorways. A white apron is a suspicious vesture in situations where spotlessness is difficult; moreover, the industry and cleanliness which the white apron expressed were belied by the postures and gaits of the women who wore it - - their knuckles being mostly on their hips (an attitude which lent them the aspect of two-handled mugs), and their shoulders against door posts; while there was a curious alacrity in the turn of each honest woman's head upon her neck and in the twirl of her honest eyes, at any noise resembling a masculine football along the lane.

Here's a nice little piece of artful insinuation from Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, which might be generally described as a novel of betrayal and revenge, blind anger and painful regret. It is in my mind somewhat inferior to Far from the Madding Crowd and Jude the Obscure as it seems uncharacteristically melodramatic, as far as my estimation of Hardy's work has developed (this being my third Hardy novel). It reminds me a bit of Hawthorne's novels, though minus the fantastical/supernatural elements. That's not to cast any aspersions on Hawthorne, who for me is unequaled in his specific genre. 

In the meantime, I have begun my reading of a ponderous 900 page tome by Olga Tokarczuk and entitled The Books of Jacob. I happened to hear about this novel in some way, I have forgotten how, and the subject drew me strongly because it reminded me of my son's passing obsession with a Messianic figure by the name of Sabbatai Zevi--a 17th century Rabbi and Kabbalist who briefly led people as a sort of Messiah. I don't remember the details now with any clarity of Zevi's philosophies and adventures, but I do remember having many a long discussion with Holden, or rather sitting for many a long lecture on the rabbi's views. Tokarczuk's novel follows a similar historical figure from the 18th century, and I just wanted to kind of reacquaint myself with something that used to engage me with my son. But I have only gotten to about page 100 thus far and so I cannot say much about the novel. I'm actually surprised that I was able to find it at all. I could have found it of course if I still had a functioning Kindle reader, but I don't. Or rather, the reader functions but I have no US visa to connect it with. However, I thought one fine day that I would just take a look on the internet marketplace here in Indonesia, called Shopee, and lo and behold there it was. So this must be a providential sign, as Holden surely would have thought. If only I had him here still to interpret for me. 

In matters not touching on the literature, I was surprised to hear today from my stepdaughter, Jamila, whom I have not seen for some 16 years and more. She is traveling here to Yogyakarta and then to Bali, and I am very much looking forward to seeing her again, as I have very much missed her during this long period of time.

Blue Shoes

Henchard gave Elizabeth Jane a box of delicately tinted gloves one spring day. She wanted to wear them to show her appreciation of his kindness, but she had no bonnet that would harmonize. As an artistic indulgence she thought she would have such a bonnet. When she had a bonnet that would go with the gloves she had no dress that would go with the bonnet. It was now absolutely necessary to finish; she ordered the requisite article, and found that she had no sunshade to go with the dress. In for a penny in for a pound; she bought the sun shade, and the whole structure was at last complete. 

The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy 

 

Just a humorous bit from this novel, which, 1/3 the way through, has offered a a quiet handful of such tongue in cheek incidents. And I can identify. Any of you other husbands or ex-husbands out there with me? 

The dress doesn't fit right. I have no blouse to go with this skirt. I have no skirt to go with this blouse. Oh my God, I have no shoes! No shoes at all! 🤭

I can vividly remember my ex-wife standing outside her closet, staring at the two shoe racks therein, and exclaiming that she had no shoes.

"No shoes? But my dear, what are these?" 

"Blue!" she said. "I need blue shoes! I can't wear this dress without blue shoes!" 

It occurred to me at the time that I did have a pair of blue shoes that I might offer, but on second thought I decided against mentioning the idea.

A Last Word Followed by a First Word

The landlord of the lodging, who had heard that they were a queer couple, had doubted if they were married at all, especially as he had seen Arabella kiss Jude one evening when she had taken a little cordial; and he was about to give them notice to quit, till by chance overhearing her one night haranguing Jude in rattling terms, and ultimately flinging a shoe at his head, he recognized the note of genuine wedlock; and concluding that they must be respectable, said no more. 

Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy 

One suspects, if he has read enough of Hardy, that the author was less than enthusiastic about the joys of marriage. And that is an understatement. The quote above in any case represents a very rare bit of humor in this otherwise breathlessly tragic tale. 

Throughout the novel, Hardy's theme has been one of true, simple love juxtaposed against properly adjudicated unions bearing the stamp of religious and societal approval. The killing influence of the letter in opposition to the natural outpouring of the heart. As the novel was written near the close of the 19th century, you can probably guess which power prevailed--although, in truth, a dynamic is set wherein all things fail. 

So I leave Jude now to his grave and his great love for Sue to her passionless marriage and move on to the Mayor of Casterbridge, by the same author, where we find this very early on indeed: 

That the man and woman were husband and wife, and the parents of the girl in arms there could be little doubt. No other than such relationship would have accounted for the atmosphere of stale familiarity which the trio carried along with them like a nimbus as they moved down the road.

Lol. So here we go again with stale marriages. The man seems to have carried the issue from book to book like Marley from place to place with his ponderous chains.

Jude the Acherontic

Is a woman a thinking unit at all, or a fraction always wanting its integer? 🤭

Remember that the best and greatest among mankind are those who do themselves no worldly good. 

Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy 

Learned a new word today. Rhadamanthine. To show stern and inflexible judgment. 

And another. Acherontic. An adjective describing something as dark, dismal, gloomy, or Infernal, often evoking a sense of death or the underworld. It is derived from the Greek mythological river Acheron and signifies a profound, hopeless sorrow or a pitch black atmosphere. 

And there you have the whole atmospheric canvas of Jude the Obscure; for, my goodness, this novel is grim and gloomy indeed, and rather shockingly so, in my mind anyway, for a novel published in 1894. 

And it is all rather wonderfully, astoundingly done. 

I wonder if anyone has ever counted the occurrences of the word obscure or its various forms through the pages of the novel. Surely someone has, I think. And then there are the many synonyms as well. Hardy has planted these throughout the text, and quite artfully so, I thought; gradually, though ceaselessly, adding darkness and dimness and gloom and fog and storm in ever heavier shades.

Only 50 pages or so remaining now. What else could go wrong? Much, I suspect, if the preceding 300 are any clue.

Tragic Comedy

'But it seems such a terribly tragic thing to bring beings into the world--so presumptuous--that I question my right to do it sometimes!'

--Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy 

My girlfriend has often expressed the same general thought--that the world now is such a terrible, tragic place that it calls into question whether she should have ever agreed to bear children. Why has God made such a world, she wonders, wherein tragedy and disaster thrive? 

Well, if it is any comfort, we can see from the Hardy quote that the world now is not any worse than the world of the mid 19th century; and one may safely assume that it never has been much good. Especially if one is acquainted with history and literature. So if misery loves company, this has been a long, long affair.

By extension then, we can appreciate the soundness of scripture when it says: God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Always terribly tragic, I guess 😉😅

Of course the key to the issue, theologically anyway, is that the good world that God created ended with original sin and the fall from grace. Since that time, it has been pretty much of a dumpster fire. Our eyes and our minds are therefore rightly set upon things above, things beyond, even as we struggle through things as they are. 

She doesn't believe that last part. She wants God to fix things now. This crappy world was his fault to begin with, she figures, and he should have done it right in the first place, or not at all! 😅

obscurity

All laughing comes from misapprehension. Rightly looked at there is no laughable thing under the sun. 

'Well, now we have met, come along,' she returned, ready to quarrel with the sun for shining on her. And they left the tent together, this pot-bellied man and florid woman, in the antipathetic, recriminatory mood of the average husband and wife of Christiandom. 

Just a couple of sober jewels from the relentlessly somber novel, Jude the Obscure. A careful menace of fate hangs over every chapter, and when the sun breaks through it is fragile, momentary, a passing illusion of a life that might be but never will be. A darkness of ill-advised passions lingers always in the background, just beyond the illusory parting of the clouds. 

I'm loving it! 😅

I am also back now from Lovina, the land of dreadful humidity, and having spent a few additional lovely, breezy, sunshiny south Bali days with Evelyn, I am now on my own again and having to readjust to her absence. 

There seems a sort of sad harmony with Jude the Obscure--a synchronicity that so often happens in the intersection of literature and life. My own thoughts pop up in the novel, and the novel pops up in the fabric of my life, and there is no laughable thing under the sun. I am plucked out of time and plunked down in the midst of paradise lost. Paradise, yes; but lost already. 

But ah well, I am content as long as contentment shines. To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.

More from Lovina

Aching in Lovina

Spending a few days in Lovina, North Bali, now and generally suffering from the high humidity. I wondered if humidity has a bad effect on arthritis, and so I looked it up, finding on Google that: 

High humidity often has a bad effect on arthritis, frequently increasing joint pain, stiffness, and swelling. Rising humidity can cause bodily tissues to expand and fluids in the joints to thicken, resulting in greater discomfort and flares.

Jeeze. 

Felt like I was being run over by a train all night long, slept very little, and was unable to join Evelyn and other guests for an early morning dolphin watching excursion. 

Oh well, I can see it on their videos 😉

Just coming from south Bali to North Bali entails a trying trip on two lane roads which wind up the mountains and then wind back down again in a constant corkscrewing through hairpin turns. Happily, I don't have a driver's license anymore and have not driven a car in some 10 years, so Evelyn drove and was bailed out at the halfway mark by her daughter Michelle. 

Lovina is much, much less developed than the southern tourist areas and therefore much less crowded, which would be nice if the stifling humidity could be removed from the experience. As it is, I will be glad to be headed back to Sanur.

The Writing on the Wall

Learned a new word today. 

Dermatographia. 

This I learned in the course of searching Google for the cause of instant red streaks on my skin whenever I have an itch somewhere. I mean that after scratching that itch, though not vigorously or anything like that, these bright red lines appear, sometimes with little darker spots along the way, like a modern art painting on a pink canvas. 

The common, non-technical, more descriptive term for dermatographia is "skin writing" . 

My goodness, how appropriate. I've always wanted to be a writer, and now it's as easy as scratching an itch. 

Unfortunately, skin writing presents in some kind of a mysterious code or ancient language. I don't know what it says. 

Yet. 

It is the writing on the wall, and I am the wall.

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.

The sounds of silence. 

I am a rock, I am an island.

These scarlet lines and doodles appear almost instantly upon scratching an itch and then disappear within minutes. It's like writing a novel without any knowledge of the story you're telling, for it disappears almost as quickly as its composed. 

In the Book of Daniel, chapter 5, we learn that ...

Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his legs became weak and his knees were knocking.

Well, the hand is mine, and my legs are always weak and my knees always knocking, so scripture doesn't seem to help very much in this instance. 

It appears that the book of the scarlet scratches must remain locked for the time being, lacking, as I do, a wise man to interpret the writings. I  do know a dog who is pretty smart, but of course he does not speak English, or any other human language.

But a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries, nor do these scratches hurt or weep,

and therefore am I content to search the mystery whenever I have an itch to do so.